31-03-2025
Clay Millican Denies Tony Stewart First NHRA Top Fuel Win
Clay Millican, the six-time champion and winningest IHRA driver, blew the engine of his Mighty Fire Breaker / Parts Plus Dragster at the finish line—'The Mighty Fire Breaker was on fire,' he said. But he earned his eighth overall victory and first for Rick Ware Racing in NHRA Top Fuel.
After jumping up and down and clapping his hands, Millican said crew chief Jim Oberhofer told him before that final-round run, 'I've got it loaded up. Two things are going to happen: We're going to win and we're going to blow it up, and if we lose, we'll be a footnote in history as the ones to let Tony Stewart win his first race. Thank goodness we ain't that footnote in history.
'Tony Stewart is going to win one of these things very soon. He wins everything. He's won in everything he's ever driven,' Millican said. 'But look who won today. I knew it blowed up, but I kept my foot in it anyway.'
Stewart was racing in just his second career Top Fuel final.
Millican posted an ET of 4.273 seconds at 189.71 mph, while Stewart smoked his tires and finished in 6.187 seconds, 99.83 mph.
Millican's feat came one day after Rick Ware Racing scored its first victories of the season with Progressive America Flat Track Series motorcycle riders Briar Bauman and Chase Saathoff at the Sanoia Short Track in Georgia. Bauman won the Mission AFT Super Twins race, and Saathoff won the ATF Singles event.
